


Still Breathing

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt and comfort, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your Bro was a good man, you tell her, a hero. But sometimes things just aren’t that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Breathing

Karkat is fuming.

You take a moment to contemplate in which, if any, situations the mutant blooded little asshole isn't fuming, isn't livid and practically popping open with all of that steam beneath his fluffy little head, but decide that maybe this is equivalent to picking through a bale of hay for a single, tiny needle, and discard the idea completely.

Because, beyond any Strider-sarcasm and your penchant for making a mountain out of a single mole-hill sized sentence, you understand that Karkat is angry and it is because of you.

If you were a better man, maybe you would wonder why all of these trolls are always so pissed off at you, but you’re not, and you don’t care, and Terezi has already made it clear enough that he’s a jealous wriggler that needs to mind his own business, so you don’t press any further.

He’s angry and he calls you names. He questions you and Terezi's “relationship”, as he calls it. He says you’re a liar. You think he’s an idiot.

And he stomps away with a bruised ego and a mad flush along his cheekbones, none the wiser and not even wanting to be.

Terezi leads you to Can Town. The Mayor is doing his nervous shuffle around. You speak to her over his head and know he won’t understand, or even pay attention. The Mayor is cool. He doesn’t judge. He knows nothing beyond his limited knowledge of small, fake towns and his rule over them, and he doesn’t even look your way as you slide off your glasses, eyes dull against the dim lighting and geared toward the familiar cracks in the ceiling.

“Hey, TZ,”

The words are easy and flow like water through the nimble fingers of practice. You are a nervous wreck beneath your façade, and if she notices, which she most likely does, Terezi says nothing of it.

“Is there such thing in troll culture as, uh… okay.”

There’s your fumble. There are the flaws in your mask, and she picks through them in blind silence as you hastily collect yourself.

“When the older trolls were still around, was it ever a thing for them to, uh… Force younger trolls to pail, or whatever stupid word you use for that shit?”

The silence is a heavy sort, a smothering thickness in your throat that presses against your eye sockets. She looks at you, unseeingly boring into your soul.

“No,” she answers finally. Your breath leaves you in a painful huff. Everything inside of you hurts, “That sounds really horrible.”

You tear your eyes from her. It does, doesn't it? It sounds disgusting. You hate how disgusting it sounds. You hate that you’ve even brought this up.

“But there is such thing in your strange, human culture, isn't there?”

You nod, and she sees it even if she can’t see it. She understands even though you never said anything. She gets you in a way that maybe even John couldn't, in a way that only the first person to call your bluff of indifference, your faulty armor against the trials that have faced you, ever could.

You think maybe this is why Karkat is so jealous.

A few minutes pass in this torturous quiet. She sniffs at the Mayor’s newly erected building. He is a familiar jittery blur along the hidden corners of the room. He searches for more cans, regardless of how many times you've turned this place inside out to find them.

You think maybe he hides them after you've finished. Maybe he loves the thrill of the hunt.

You feel that maybe everyone is happier with themselves than you are.

You decide then to speak. Terezi looks at you as though she’s been itching to listen anyway; as though she has been waiting out your entire friendship to hear these confessions finally free you.

It’s a very long twenty-five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. They blink by on the clock above the steel-locked door.

You tell her of human crimes. You tell her of rape and of the abuse of children. Of parents who feel the last thing they need to do is to love, and of suicide. You tell her of horrible things, and unspeakable things, of the violent, gruesome world that she and her lot created.

You tell her of how someone can hurt you, can beat you up and touch you in dirty ways that might never wash from your skin, and how regardless, you will continue to love them. They've made you stronger. They've hurt you and they've made you want to die, but…

Sometimes it’s harder than that.

Sometimes the world is not black and white, love and hate. Sometimes there are a thousand shades between that gloss over and feel so hot and heavy in your bones that you might never want to stand tall again.

That maybe there are chains that bind you. Maybe human love is only another form of pain.

And then, only because she asks, you let her feel your scars.

She maps them out along your back, seeing with blind eyes, feeling each hour, each day and month and year of training in the hot sizzle of the sun. She starts to cry.

Your Bro was a good man, you tell her, a hero.

But sometimes things just aren't that simple.

Karkat is fuming somewhere far off on the other end of the meteor. You wonder why all of these trolls hate you. You wonder why things can’t just be black and white.

Terezi cries. She sniffles and sobs and you let her hold you. She is warm against your bare skin, against your scars. She’s vibrating with life—her pulse a racket beneath her wrists, under her breast.

You ask her of troll crimes. She is the blind eye of the law. She is excited to tell you through her tears.

And you work on pulling everything back in.

Hiding, and beginning not to care again.


End file.
